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Morning Show PD-Atrician
Jimbo Wood, Mornings on WRTT Huntsville, AL
I’ve been half of our morning show for almost 9 years. The first discussion we had was one of the most important talks any morning show can have. Roles. Who is who on the show. Luckily, my co-host, Matt Mitchell (Casio) came to me having already been a part of a huge, very successful show. He knew about roles on a show already and that made hitting our stride so much easier. As far as show prep goes, our show is 90% our lives and 10% canned bits, characters or games for prizes. We text each other ideas but we don’t get into too much detail because we found that the other guy’s reaction is what we’re trying to get to in the segment. Real life talk is absolutely our anchor. When listeners see us, they usually have two things to say; “I feel like I know you guys” and “Thank you for not being political”. Which leads to how we’re handling the country’s current climate. We aren’t talking about it at all. Best we can tell from comments, emails, Facebook messages and ratings, our listeners appreciate it. I have a friend who did mornings for almost 30 years tell me how irresponsible of us it is to not address the situation since we’re #1 and have a big audience but we’ve found it better for us to play rock music, talk about silly things and stay out of it. What’s most important is to do whatever works for your show and your station and stay real.
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Does Your Morning Show Have Character?
From Golden Girls to Seinfeld to Friends...every successful show has well-defined characters. For example, when Seinfeld created Frank Costanza, George's Father, here is how they defined his character:
"George's Italian Catholic father. Utterly deranged and very quick to anger. Former cook in the Army and detests removing his shoes in other people's homes. Because of his work as a businessman traveling to Korea, he speaks Korean. He invented the holiday Festivus, as a reaction to cultural commercialism of Christmas, and of which George has few fond memories. He has a phobia of spending silver dollars and suffers strongly from musophobia, however he have a genuine compassion for squirrels."
Using the above example, each member of your morning show should create their own paragraph that digs deep into their character, defining exactly who they are and what the listeners should expect of him or her. Then, exploit these traits on the air!! A well-defined character helps the listener to connect with the personality, drives passion and is key to a successful show.
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